The FAF AFAP Digest

Tuesday, Oct. 29

Met up with Jim at the Y and did an easy recovery workout. I'm still sore from the meet. It didn't help that I didn't warm down and couldn't get in the pool yesterday. Jim is recovering from a back spasm himself, so can't do much right now. We hit the jacuzzi before and after.

Jim and I had an interesting chat in the jacuzzi. Jim had recently interviewed Brent Rushall on how to pace a race and relayed to me an interesting study involving drylands (which Rushall doesn't believe in). The study compared two groups of college swimmers over their 4 year careers. One group did a traditional program with high yardage, drylands and a season end taper. The other group did high intensity training (which is not just for sprinters!) with half the yardage, no drylands and no taper. The latter group improved much more than the traditional group, improving 8-14%. Interesting no?

Comments

Has Jim's interview been published anywhere yet? Is that study available anywhere yet?

I'll be interested to see how I swim this fall when I rest. While I've not been doing a Rushall approach, I've been doing more race-pace and shorter stuff than any point in my life (yesterday's workout excluded). This has been primarily due to worries about recovering my shoulder, but I'm also interested to see how this works for race results. If my results are decent enough, I'm contemplating aiming for as close adherence to the Rushall formula from January through April and seeing how that plays out at SCY Nationals.

When you say a group, do you mean an entire college swimming class or a specific group within the class(sprinters, mid d, distance, etc). I am really curious how Rushall works for mid and distance events. It makes sense but flies against everything I have ever done its hard to contemplate. If it works and there is research to prove it works then I think it's awesome. Good stuff and I can't wait for the article.

When you say a group, do you mean an entire college swimming class or a specific group within the class(sprinters, mid d, distance, etc). I am really curious how Rushall works for mid and distance events. It makes sense but flies against everything I have ever done its hard to contemplate. If it works and there is research to prove it works then I think it's awesome. Good stuff and I can't wait for the article.

I don't know for sure as Jim was just relaying what Rushall said.

I think Rushall may work better for mid-D and D than sprints. There is loads of science behind his theories. Just do some googleing and read. It certainly does fly in the face of most training these days. I wish he would offer some sets that are more for masters. Most of sets with the 1:1 rest ratio are simply too difficult. I know he has that "fail and skip" caveat but even then, his sprint sets are way too hard (for me anyway).

That is kinda interesting. Maybe the energy used in dryland can be more appropriately used in the water when in the Rushall's format. But this would depend on the specific type of dryland activity he was referring to, how much of the first group's high yardage was garbage, other numerous variables, and what types of swimmers of each group improved or didn't (and how much).

Would be nice to have a comparison between two high intensity groups, one as is, like the one mentioned. The other the same, but with additional strength and power related dryland activity in moderation (i.e., weights and plyo). Then compare the differences on the distance and stroke level.

As a short distance person relying on whatever strength I can find, there's too many variables at hand to accept this program would help me. Anyhow, I'm just a masters swimmer and I enjoy doing dryland stuff.